About

As kids, we spent the afternoons playing console classic local multiplayer video games. Our goal is to relive those sensations and those moments that made us laugh and have so much fun together. Unfortunately, nowadays local multiplayer genre, especially on pc, is not considered as we think it should be, so we decided to create our own game. Our team is made up of two programmers, a 3d modeler and a 2d artist; we used our knowledge to create this game and we dream, with your help, of transforming the development of video games into our work. Inspired by great classics like Micro Machines, Crash Team Racing and others, we decided to create Micro Mayhem.

The game will be released on Steam, and will be compatible with all main operating systems.

The purpose of our crowdfunding campaign is to make the game as optimized as possible without further lengthening development times. We also aim to get a lot of feedback during the Early Access to make sure the game is fun to play and meets the expectations of backers.
Although we still have a lot of ideas to implement, we decided to focus on a subset to show a playable, fully working core version of Micro Mayhem. With your help, we plan to add new cars, maps and even game modes, as well as polish the ones we already have. In short, we could improve every aspect of the game.

Micro Mayhem is a local multiplayer game where up to 6 players challenge each other using toy cars in various location and different game modes.

As of now, we have implemented three vehicles, each with its own strengths and weaknesses: Tank, Havoc and Muscle.

Every car is equipped with a main weapon and a powerful special ability.

The Tank, as the name suggest, is a slow vehicle with good firepower (2 different kinds of bullet) that can take a lot of damage before going down. The tank is especially good in situations that can benefit from its higher health points, like camping on a crucial waypoint and acting as a living turret taking down incautious enemies. The main bullet can be loaded and shot very fast, with a variable range. The special ability has a very long cooldown but its huge bullet deals tons of damage and can travel great distances as it is not affected by gravity.

The Havoc is a balanced character with both a long-range attack and a close-range defense mechanism: it can drop a mine on the ground. It’s currently the hardest vehicle to master, but it surely is the most versatile of the three. With its combination of techniques it can be useful in every kind of situation and scenario. Depending on loading time, the rockets can be shot at different ranges (even on yourself so be careful); the mine is useful as a defense against chasing enemies, but also as a trap to place around the map; however most skilled players will learn to use it also as a powerful attack.

The Muscle is the weakest and fastest of the three. Its machine gun can deal quite good damage but its flaming speed boost, if mastered, is a game-changer. It’s obviously the best vehicle for moving quickly through the map and going from one side to the other, while dodging enemy attacks or even chasing low hp enemies. Its main weakness is the low max health. When firing the machine gun, the players must consider its cooldown but also prevent the overheating of the gun. The secondary attack, on the other hand, can be used less frequently, but it’s capable of blocking enemy bullets while dealing a good amount of damage and giving a huge speed boost.

There are currently six full game modes and more are in development.

The modes are:

Free For All is the classic all against everyone, every player for himself: the goal is to be the first player to get to the winning score.

Last Car Standing is again all against all, with a twist: there is no respawn and the winner of each round is the last player standing, or rather the last surviving car: hence the name of this game mode.

Team Deathmatch is a team mode without respawn where the team that survives until the end of the round wins.

Capture the Flag is a great classic of the 90's Arena First Person Shooters: the goal is to steal the flag from the opponent base bringing it to yours to score a point.

King of the Hill: win goes to the team that controls the hill for the time it takes to accumulate enough points.

Sport mode is the latest update we added to the game. In this mode each location represent a different sport: football, basketball and hockey. The team who first get three points wins the game. Here the mechanics are a bit different: there is a special ability that let the player dash forward to push the ball.

We tried to create different kind of maps (small/large, simple/complex) so players can try different strategies to win games.
We won’t talk right now of the mode that is currently being developed, but be sure to follow our updates here on Kickstarter and you’ll find out real soon what the fuss is about.

Environment is a key part of Micro Mayhem: each scenario has unique elements that can affect gameplay. There are currently three different locations per game mode: Kitchen, Study Desk, Playroom.

The various locations offer different type of challenges to the player. Each scenario has its own traps (e.g. heated ovens or desk fans) and secrets that, if used in the right moment, can turn the side of the battle in favor of the smartest players. Some of the interactive elements are always active, while others need to be activated by players, usually by shooting at them. Some example may include shooting at sponges in the kitchen set to make an opponent sink and drown, or lurking the enemy on the playroom railroad to get the train do the dirty work for you.

A quick word about the maps:

"Capture the Flag" maps are usually large sized maps, where fast vehicles are advantaged as they can move quickly between bases to steal and carry their opponents’ flag. These are also the funniest vehicles to play in this game mode, as they are always in the middle of the action. Slower vehicles are harder to play here, but can be used to defend the base or the flag carrier by players with more experience.

"King of the Hill" maps can be of different sizes, but the hill itself is always the center of the action. Here, heavier vehicles have a clear advantage as they can take a lot of damage and gain a lot of points before going down. A good way to counter these beasts is to get on the hill at the same time, therefore making the hill contested.

"Team Deathmatch" maps are small sized, focusing the action on quick rounds as there is no respawn and the goal is to be the only team alive. Here each vehicle can make the difference as result depends more on the player's ability.

"Deathmatch" and "Last Car Standing" maps are mid-to-big size to balance the possibility of close quarter fights with the long range shooting that some players prefer. Here the most important element is the strategy: the ability to choose which fight to engage or to flee from can make the difference between 1st and 2nd place.

"Sport" mode, as we already said, has unique maps that differs both in size and complexity as every location is matched to a different sport.

Our plan is to keep expanding the game during its lifetime, with different kinds of update: we’ll have frequent, small upgrades like new vehicles and skins, but also larger updates introducing new locations or even game modes. The best part of this, is that every update will befree for everyone who bought the game! We are working on a system of progression and experience based on in-game stats, so that everyone will be able to unlock new stuff by just playing the game.

We would like the bakers to take part in the decision process about imminent updates, and to do that we are setting up a private forum where we’ll be able to ask their opinion via direct questions and polls.

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If we fully succeed in the Kickstarter campaign reaching our top goal, we will start implementing the online multiplayer component of the game: although we think that the funniest way to play Micro Mayhem is on the couch with friends, we are aware that a lot of people find it hard to gather in the same place for a variety of reasons. Implementing online multiplayer - or even local vs online multiplayer - is a major task that will require some rework to the current gameplay and to the game core so we’ll need a full time developer for this specific task, hence this will be the highest goal of the campaign.

From November 1 to 5 we went to the town of Lucca for Lucca Comics and Games, one of the most important conventions in Italy. We had the luck to be chosen between plenty of other indie developers to show Micro Mayhem and we received a lot of positive feedbacks. We let our guests try every game mode on various maps, but the "Playroom Capture the Flag" was definitely one of the most loved, especially when we had 6 players trying the game at the same time. The "Kitchen King of the Hill" also became a must-play every day. Anyway, with the combination of each game mode in different map sets, every game was a story of its own. During and after the games, we asked our guest for suggestions and if there was something that they liked or hated and we started to implement the best ideas on the same days. Overall the feedback we received was very good and some guys even came back to play again for the next days!
Another positive note was that although we had the game running for 5 days straight, we found very few bugs and everything went smoothly. On the 5th of November we left Lucca with our bags filled with new ideas and improvements for Micro Mayhem.

Another event we attended was the Nerd Show in Bologna. It’s a new event as this was its first year and we were pleased to join the other indie teams on the 10 and 11 of February. The indie zone was quite big and a lot of people of all ages came to try the games. We were happy to show the last additions to Micro Mayhem, such as the Tutorial and Sport game modes. These proved to be very immediate to understand as everyone was able to get right into the action. This was also a great occasion to test the improvements that we decided to implement after Lucca: we got another proof that we were on the right track and that the game was almost ready to be published.

Last event we attended before the Kickstarter campaign launch was Svilupparty, yet again in Bologna. It's a conference dedicated to game developers in which we had the chance to show Micro Mayhem to other teams as well as fellow pc gamers. It was a great occasion to present our game on stage and to gather some toughts about the upcoming launch. We definitely want to thank everyone for sharing useful advices and suggestions.

As of now, we are planning to take part to other events so keep an eye on the news section!

Stretch goals will be unveiled after the base campaign goal is reached.

Come back to check this section later on!

The following graph represent how we plan to invest founds raised with this campaign. After covering merchandise, shipment and Kickstarter fees, we will focus our attention on music, new tools and other assets. Marketing & Promotion are the fields where we struggle the most, so all founds left will be used to promote the game.All the budget will be reinvested in Micro Mayhem.

We have planned ahead for rewards so we are aware of the processes to obtain this awesome merchandise. In fact we already brought some to past conventions (like stickers, buttons, t-shirts). The Early Access will start as soon as the Kickstarter campaign is over, while the official release date is set to the end of the year.

Risks and challenges

We want to make it clear that the game is already in a playable state (and has been greenlit on Steam with the old vote system), therefore the risks of not seeing it released are null.
Despite this, there is certainly plenty of room for improvement and the success of the campaign would ensure that the game is released within the timescale and with all the optimizations we deem necessary.
Regardless of the outcome of the campaign, our goal is to create a game that meets our expectations and those of the players, so in any case we will do our best to achieve the goal.